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18 <B>B u s y B o x</B>
23 <a href="/"><IMG SRC="images/busybox2.jpg" alt="BusyBox" border="0" width="360" height="230"></a><BR>
26 <!-- Begin Introduction section -->
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31 <A NAME="intro"> <BIG><B>
32 The Swiss Army Knife of Embedded Linux
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37 BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single
38 small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities
39 you usually find in fileutils, shellutils, findutils, textutils, grep, gzip,
40 tar, etc. BusyBox provides a fairly complete POSIX environment for any small or
41 embedded system. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than
42 their full featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide
43 the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.
45 BusyBox has been written with size-optimization and limited resources in mind.
46 It is also extremely modular so you can easily include or exclude commands (or
47 features) at compile time. This makes it easy to customize your embedded
48 systems. To create a working system, just add /dev, /etc, and a kernel.
51 BusyBox is now maintained by
52 <a href="http://codepoet.org/andersen/erik/erik.html">
53 Erik Andersen</a>, and its ongoing development is being sponsored by
54 <a href="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</a>.
56 BusyBox is licensed under the
57 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE</a>.
63 <p> Because everybody loves screenshots, a screenshot of BusyBox
64 is now available <a href="screenshot.html">right here</a>.
67 <H3>Mailing List Information</h3>
68 BusyBox now has a <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a>!
69 To subscribe, go and visit <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/mailman/listinfo/busybox">this page</a>.
71 <!-- Begin Latest News section -->
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84 <li> <b>2 August 2001 -- BusyBox 0.60.0 released</b>
86 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
87 BusyBox 0.60.0. I have personally tested this release with libc5, glibc,
88 and <a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a> on
89 x86, ARM, and powerpc using linux 2.2 and 2.4, and I know a number
90 of people using it on everything from ia64 to m68k with great success.
91 Everything seems to be working very nicely now, so getting a nice
92 stable bug-free(tm) release out seems to be in order. This releases fixes
93 a memory leak in syslogd, a number of bugs in the ash and msh shells, and
94 cleans up a number of things.
98 Those wanting an easy way to test the 0.60.0 release with uClibc can
99 use <a href="http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/">User-Mode Linux</a>
100 to give it a try by downloading and compiling
101 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/buildroot.tar.gz">buildroot.tar.gz</a>.
102 You don't have to be root or reboot your machine to run test this way.
103 Preconfigured User-Mode Linux kernel source is also on oss.lineo.com.
105 Another cool thing is the nifty <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/tutorial/index.html">
106 BusyBox Tutorial</a> contributed by K Computing. This requires
107 a ShockWave plugin (or standalone viewer), so you may want to grab the
108 the GPLed shockwave viewer from <a href="http://www.swift-tools.com/Flash/flash-0.4.10.tgz">here</a>
109 to view the tutorial.
112 Finally, In case you didn't notice anything odd about the
113 version number of this release, let me point out that this release
114 is <em>not</em> 0.53, because I bumped the version number up a
115 bit. This reflects the fact that this release is intended to form
116 a new stable BusyBox release series. If you need to rely on a
117 stable version of BusyBox, you should plan on using the stable
118 0.60.x series. If bugs show up then I will release 0.60.1, then
119 0.60.2, etc... This is also intended to deal with the fact that
120 the BusyBox build system will be getting a major overhaul for the
121 next release and I don't want that to break products that people
122 are shipping. To avoid that, the new build system will be
123 released as part of a new BusyBox development series that will
124 have some not-yet-decided-on odd version number. Once things
125 stabablize and the new build system is working for everyone, then
126 I will release that as a new stable release series.
130 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> has all
131 the details. As usual BusyBox 0.60.0 can be downloaded from
132 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
137 <li> <b>7 July 2001 -- BusyBox 0.52 released</b>
140 I am very pleased to announce the immediate availability of
141 BusyBox 0.52 (the "new-and-improved rock-solid release"). This
142 release is the result of <em>many</em> hours of work and has tons
143 of bugfixes, optimizations, and cleanups. This release adds
144 several new applets, including several new shells (such as hush, msh,
149 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/Changelog">changelog</a> covers
150 some of the more obvious details, but there are many many things that
151 are not mentioned, but have been improved in subtle ways. As usual,
152 BusyBox 0.52 can be downloaded from
153 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
158 <li> <b>10 April 2001 - Graph of Busybox Growth </b>
160 The illustrious Larry Doolittle has made a PostScript chart of the growth
161 of the Busybox tarball size over time. It is available for downloading /
162 viewing <a href= "busybox-growth.ps"> right here</a>.
164 <p> (Note that while the number of applets in Busybox has increased, you
165 can still configure Busybox to be as small as you want by selectively
166 turning off whichever applets you don't need.)
173 For the old news, visit <a href="http://busybox.lineo.com/oldnews.html">the old news page</a>.
177 <!-- Begin Download section -->
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187 <li> Source for the latest release can always be downloaded from
188 <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox">ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox</a>.
190 <li> A new snapshot of the source is made daily and is available as a GNU
191 gzipped tarball <a href="busybox.tar.gz"> right here</a>.
193 <li> BusyBox now has its own publically browsable
194 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/busybox/">CVS tree</a>,
196 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_anon.html">CVS access</a>, and
197 for those that are actively contributing there is even
198 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/cvs_write.html">CVS write access</a>.
203 <!-- Begin Docs section -->
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206 <A NAME="docs"><BIG><B>
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211 Current documentation for BusyBox includes:
213 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/BusyBox.html">BusyBox.html</a>.
214 This is a list of the all the available commands in BusyBox with
215 complete usage information and examples of how to use each app. I
216 have spent a <em>lot</em> of time updating these docs and trying to
217 make them fairly comprehensive. If you find any errors (factual,
218 grammatical, whatever) please let me know.
219 <li> <a href="ftp://oss.lineo.com/busybox/README">README</a>.
220 This is the README file included in the busybox source release.
221 <li> <a href="http://bugs.lineo.com/db/pa/lbusybox.html">BusyBox Bugs</a>.
222 Need to report a bug? Need to check if a bug has been filed?
223 <li> If you need more help, the BusyBox
224 <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/lists/busybox/">mailing list</a> is
225 a good place to start.
229 <!-- Begin Links section -->
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242 <li> <A HREF="http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/">
243 Free Software from Bruce Perens</A><br>
244 The original idea for BusyBox, and all versions up to 0.26 were written
245 by <A HREF="mailto:bruce@perens.com">Bruce Perens</a>. This is his BusyBox website.
248 <li> <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net/projects/busybox/">
249 Freshmeat AppIndex record for BusyBox</A>
251 <li><a href="http://tinylogin.lineo.com/">TinyLogin</a>
252 is a nice embedded tool for handling authentication, changing passwords,
253 and similar tasks which nicely complements BusyBox.
256 <li><a href="http://cvs.uclinux.org/uClibc.html">uClibc</a>
257 is a C library for embedded systems. You can actually statically link
258 a "Hello World" application under x86 that only takes 4k (as opposed to
259 200k under GNU libc). It can do dynamic linking too and works nicely with
260 BusyBox to create very small embedded systems.
263 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/software.html">Other cool embedded software</a>.
266 <li> <a href="http://opensource.lineo.com/">opensource.lineo.com</a>.
269 <li> <A HREF="http://www.lineo.com/">Lineo</A> is sponsoring BusyBox development.
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278 <A NAME="projects"><BIG><B>
279 Products/Projects Using BusyBox
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284 <p> I know of the following products and/or projects that use BusyBox --
285 listed in the order I happen to add them to the web page:
288 <li> <a href="http://www.lineo.com/products/embedix_linux/">Lineo Embedix Linux</a>
289 <li> <a href="http://cvs.debian.org/boot-floppies/">Debian installer (boot floppies) project</a>
290 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxrouter.org/">Linux Router Project </a>
291 <li> <a href="http://linux-embedded.org/">LEM</a>
292 <li> <a href="http://www.toms.net/rb/">tomsrtbt</a>
293 <li> <a href="http://www.stormix.com/">Stormix Installer</a>
294 <li> <a href="http://www.emacinc.com/linux2_sbc.htm">EMAC Linux 2.0 SBC</a>
295 <li> <a href="http://www.trinux.org/">Trinux</a>
296 <li> <a href="http://oddas.sourceforge.net/">ODDAS project</a>
297 <li> <a href="http://www.kerbango.com/">The Kerbango Internet Radio</a>
298 <li> <a href="http://www.linuxmagic.com/vpn/">LinuxMagic VPN Firewall</a>
299 <li> <a href="http://byld.sourceforge.net/">Build Your Linux Disk</a>
300 <li> <a href="http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~ichi/baslinux.html">BasicLinux</a>
301 <li> <a href="http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery">Zdisk</a>
302 <li> <a href="http://www.adtran.com">AdTran - VPN/firewall VPN Linux Distribution</a>
303 <li> <a href="http://mkcdrec.ota.be/">mkCDrec - make CD-ROM recovery</a>
304 <li> <a href="http://recycle.lbl.gov/~ldoolitt/bse/">Linux on nanoEngine</a>
305 <li> <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/"> Floppyfw</a>
307 <li> <a href="http://midori.transmeta.com/"> Midori Linux</a> - <a href=
308 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399,00.html"> Article on
309 Midori Linux</a> on <a href= "http://www.wired.com"> Wired</a>. Quote from
310 Erik at the top of <a href=
311 "http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42399-2,00.html"> this
314 <li> <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">Linux Terminal Server Project</a>
315 <li> <a href="http://www.devil-linux.org/">Devil-Linux</a>
319 <p> Do you use BusyBox? I'd love to know about it and I'd be happy to link to
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336 <font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">
337 Mail all comments, insults, suggestions and bribes to
338 <a href="mailto:andersen@lineo.com">Erik Andersen</a><BR>
339 The Busybox logo is copyright 1999,2000,2001, Erik Andersen.
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356 src="images/ltbutton2.png" alt="Linux Today"></a>
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366 src="images/fm.mini.png" alt="Freshmeat"></a>